The Perfect Armor

Suppose you were drawing up specifications for the perfect armor. It would be
easy to make from inexpensive materials using commonly available tools. It
would be light, strong and rustproof. It would look good. And, of course, it
would be period.

Hardened leather, also known as courbouilli, meets all of those requirements.
Since discovering how easy it is to make, I have used it to make forearm and
elbow protectors, greaves, a half gauntlet, body armor, and edging for my
shield. I even made a hardened leather hockey cup, on the theory that the usual
white plastic version was the most strikingly mundane item in my armor bag.

In this essay, I will describe how to make several pieces of armor out of
hardened leather: a bazuband (a medieval Islamic forearm and elbow
protector), a klibanion (Byzantine body armor), a gauntlet and a basket
hilt. The techniques described can be applied to a wide variety of other
pieces.

To start, you need some leather. It should be vegetable tanned leather rather
than chrome tanned leather, and undyed. Chrome tanned, which is the most common
modern variety, can usually be recognized by the grey color of the cut edge
(unless the edge has been dyed). Vegetable tanned leather is used for carving,
making belts and similar projects; it is often described as saddle skirting.
Its color, before you harden it, is a light tan.

The thickness of leather is defined in ounces per square foot. One ounce
corresponds to a thickness of 1/64"; what is actually measured is usually
thickness rather than weight. Ideally you should use at least 12 or 13 ounce
leather. Leather as light as 8 or 9 ounces can be used for armor, at least over
places that are not too vulnerable; if you make your bazuband out of something
that light, use two thicknesses over the elbow. The klibanion is made of
overlapping lamellae, giving a total thickness of about twice the thickness of
a single layer of leather, so 8 ounce provides at least minimal protection.

Before you start making hardened leather armor, let me give you three warnings.
The first is that, although beeswax is attractive, pleasant smelling stuff,
people who do not make armor and do share your kitchen may object to finding
hardened drops of it scattered over the floor, stove, and countertops. The
problem can be minimized by being careful with the molten wax. If you are not
good at being careful, you will want to know that hardened wax is easier to
remove if you use something soaked in hot water.

The second warning is that wax can burn-which is why it is used to make
candles. I have never had beeswax catch fire on me when I was using it to
harden leather, but I expect it could happen if you got it too hot. I have no
experience with paraffin or other waxes that you might use instead. Be careful,
and keep a fire extinguisher nearby.

My final warning is to remind you that the bag that separates your inside from
your outside is made of leather. Any tool designed to cut leather is also
designed to cut you, so be careful. As Kipling put it in "The Wrong Thing,"
"Do your work with your heart's blood, but no need to let it show."

Figure 1

To Make a Bazuband

Figure 1 shows what a simple bazuband looks like; Figure 2 shows the piece of
leather you will use. The measurements are the circumference of the wrist (a),
the maximum circumference of the forearm (b) and the distance from the wrist to
the crease that divides the forearm from the upper arm (c). I have given the
measurements of the piece for my arm as an example.

Cut out the piece, fill a pot with cold water from the tap, and put the leather
in to soak; if you do not have a pot big enough, use the sink or bathtub. After
the leather has soaked for half an hour or so it gets flexible and slightly
stretchy. If you are making something that requires a good deal of stretching,
such as a bazuband or greave, let the leather soak overnight, then take it out,
cover it with a damp towel, and leave it for eight hours or so.

If you were simply making a forearm guard, all you would have to do to shape it
would be wrap it around your arm (with padding), or around anything else about
the same shape and size, and let it dry. A bazuband is a little trickier
because of the part that covers the elbow, which is curved like part of a
sphere. To make that, you have to stretch the central portion of the leather
that goes over the elbow-the shaded area on Figure 2. The different degrees of
shading are intended to give a rough idea of what is stretched how much.

Figure 2

One way is to use a medium sized bowl-say 6"-8" in diameter. Put the bowl
upside down on a convenient counter and stretch the leather over it by hand.
Another way is to use two bowls, one a little larger than the other, with the
leather in between.

When the leather has been stretched enough, the next step is to tie it to the
form. The form should be something about the size and shape the bazuband is
going to be. That means that it should be cylindrical for eight inches or so,
with a diameter of about four or five inches and an end that is roughly
spherical-increase the numbers a little if you are a giant.

I happen to have a steel bazuband the right size, so I cover it with Saran Wrap
to protect it from the wet leather and use it as my form. If you do not have
any antique armor lying around, look on the shelf where you keep empty jars,
wine bottles, and the like; you should be able to find something about the
right size and shape. It does not have to be exact; you will be able to do a
certain amount of reshaping of the damp leather after you take it off the form.
If you are really ambitious and good at whittling, you could probably make a
wooden form and use it to make bazubands for everyone in your group.

Tie the wet leather onto the form, using strips of cloth to avoid marking the
leather. Better yet, use a roller bandage-one of those elastic bandages they
sell to tie up a sprain, made out of stuff that sticks to itself. You probably
have one left around from the time you sprained your ankle fighting.

The basic idea is to get the wet leather tied tightly onto the form, so that
when it dries it will have the shape of the form. The only hard part is the
spherical section covering the elbow. Work that onto the corresponding part of
the form by hand, trying to get it as smooth and wrinkle free as possible. I
generally leave it for fifteen or twenty minutes, in the hope that it will
stretch a bit more, then untie that part and try again. When you are finally
satisfied, leave it for a few hours to dry.

At that point the leather should be stiff enough to hold its shape as long as
you treat it gently; take it off the form so the inside as well as the outside
can dry. If necessary reshape it a bit-open up the cylinder that goes over your
forearm if it is too tight, or close it a little if it is too loose. Then leave
it somewhere out of the way to finish drying. Do not start the next step until
the leather is thoroughly dry, which probably means waiting several days; if
you try to harden leather that is still a little damp, horrible things will
happen to it.

Leather is hardened by impregnating it with beeswax. Some people do this by
melting wax in a large pot and putting in the leather. This method requires a
lot of wax, and I have never tried it. I harden my leather in the oven, using a
large pan or a sheet of aluminum foil. In the pan I put the bazuband, with the
hollow side up and a large chunk-half a pound or so-of beeswax inside it. Then
I put the pan, leather, and wax in an oven set at about 220deg. .

When the leather is hot and the wax beginning to soften a little, take the pan
out, rub the wax all over the surface of the leather, and put the pan (and wax
and bazuband) back in the oven. Try not to spill wax anywhere where it is
likely to catch fire. Continue the process for half an hour or more, rubbing
wax on both sides, letting chunks of softened wax melt in the hollow part of
the bazuband and running the melted wax around the inside, until the leather is
soaked through with wax. Then turn off the oven and take out the pan, bazuband,
and what is left of the wax. As long as the leather is hot the bazuband is
reasonably flexible, so do any last minute reshaping to get the size just
right, then let it cool and harden.

This is a simple bazuband, made of only one piece of leather, so all that
remains to do is to punch holes in it (as shown in Figure 1), run a leather
thong through the holes, and put in whatever kind of padding you prefer. You
are done. You now have light, strong, rustproof protection for your sword arm
and elbow. It is a beautiful brown color and looks (and is) very real.

Figure 3

If you wanted a somewhat fancier bazuband, you could make a second piece to
cover the inside of your wrist, as shown on Figure 3. The hinge is simply a
strip of unhardened leather, rivetted to both pieces as shown. The side of the
main piece that does not attach to the hinge has a lip for the wrist piece to
fit over. It is simply a long rectangle of hardened leather, rivetted to the
main piece as shown. The bazuband is held closed by two buckles. The figure
includes an end view of the piece, seen from the wrist end, showing how the
hinge, the lip, the main piece and the piece for the inside of the wrist go
together.

In addition to covering the inside of the wrist, the bazuband shown in Figure 3
is fancier in another respect as well. The tip of the part that covers the
elbow has a reverse curve, to make it more comfortable-that way there is no
edge pressing against your arm just above the elbow. Some bazubands were made
this way, some were not. Figure 4 shows one where the design has been modified
to provide a little more protection to the sides of the elbow.

Figure 4

Obviously, there is lots of room for varying the details of the design to fit
your taste and body. One of my bazubands currently has two extra holes in it
near the elbow end, so that part of the lacing comes across the bend at the
inside of my elbow; I think I like it better that way but am not quite sure.
You can use buckles and straps instead of lacing. If you usually fight with a
basket hilt, you can extend the bazuband at the wrist end a little, to provide
a flap that covers the back of your hand and improves your wrist protection,
like a half gauntlet.

What has your bazuband cost you to make? Where I live, the local leather stores
sell scrap vegetable tanned leather, usually about 8 ounce, for $3 a
pound-apparently leftovers from making belts. Sometimes they have pieces
suitable for something like a bazuband, sometimes not. For leather that is not
scrap the price is usually given in dollars per square foot, but works out to
about $6 a pound. If your arm is the same size as mine, the piece of leather
shown in Figure 1 is about two-thirds of a square foot; allowing for wastage,
you will probably have to buy about one square foot. If you are using 12 ounce
leather, that will weigh 12 ounces and cost under $3 if you can find it as
scrap, under $6 otherwise. Add another dollar or two for the wax and you have a
very nice piece of armor for less than eight dollars worth of materials.

After you have been using the bazuband for a few months, and blocking far too
many blows with your swordarm instead of your shield, you may find that the
leather has gotten a little soft in places and the color has gotten lighter.
The solution is simple; put it back in the oven-provided, of course, that your
padding is either ovenproof or removable. Ten or fifteen minutes in a 200deg.
oven will remelt the wax, reharden the leather, and restore its original color.
If it has been badly beaten, you might want to rub in a little more wax.

I have described the making of a particular piece of armor, but the same
techniques can be used for other pieces. My greaves are essentially oversized
bazubands (with a second piece covering the calf, like the wrist piece in the
fancier version). Once I have gotten the knee part adequately stretched, I use
my leg for the form to get the rest of the greave to shape. I have to hobble
around for an hour or two with my leg wrapped in leather and roller bandage-but
the final result is a greave molded exactly to the shape of my leg, like
ancient Greek armor.

One problem I have occasionally had in making such armor is that the spherical
parts come out not quite spherical enough; I have not stretched the leather
sufficiently, with the result that my knee or elbow does not go quite far
enough in to be adequately protected. There is a solution to this problem.
Leather can be worked with a hammer on an anvil, much as steel is worked. The
essential idea is to stretch the leather, before or after hardening, by
hammering it against a hard surface. For details, consult a friendly armorer.
An alternative way of solving the problem might be to make a two or three inch
cut starting at the point marked X on Figure 2, overlap the edges of the cut,
and rivet or sew the cut closed; I haven't tried that, but it seems like one
obvious way of getting the hollow deeper.

To Make a Klibanion

Lamellar armor is made from lots of small plates of some rigid material,
such as metal or leather, laced together. It was used by many different
peoples, from Scandinavia to Japan. I call the piece I am describing a
klibanion because that is a particular kind of lamellar armor for which I
happen to have a name, but similar armor was used by many different people.
Making lamellar armor is a project I have been thinking of for years but only
got around to doing recently, while writing this article.

Figure 5

The first step is to cut out lots of lamellae. Figure 5 shows the size and
shape I used, as well as several other shapes based on surviving lamellae (from
Thordeman and Robinson). The material I used was 8 ounce vegetable tanned
leather. A sleeveless lamellar vest, protecting me from the waist up, required
about 180 lamellae.

The next step is to harden the leather. Since the pieces are flat, you can
simply stack them in a cake pan or something similar, put a big lump of beeswax
on top, stick them in a 220deg. oven and let the wax melt. When it is mostly
or entirely melted, turn the pieces over, rearrange, and generally fiddle with
them until every piece is saturated with wax. Then take them out and let them
cool.

The next step is to put in the holes. You could do this with a leather punch,
but I think it is easier to use a drill, especially if you have access to a
drill press. Mark out the positions of the holes on one lamella, put it on top
of a stack of five or ten others, make sure they are all aligned, and drill a
hole through the whole stack. Put a nail or something similar into the hole to
make it harder for the lamellae to shift around, then drill a second hole. Put
another nail in that hole, then drill the rest; two nails will keep the
lamellae pretty well aligned. Make sure you are drilling straight down, so the
holes are in the same position in all the pieces.

Figure 6 shows a group of nine lamellae laced together and a diagram of the
lacing pattern I use; it is slightly modified from a reconstruction by Bengt
Thordeman described in Byzantine Armies 886-1118. I use leather thong
for lacing. I lace the lamellae together into long horizontal strips, then lace
the strips together. The lamellae in each strip overlap over those in the strip
above, so the overlap is upward-just the opposite of scale armor, which
overlaps down.

Figure 6

Figure 7 shows my klibanion, laid out flat. It fastens at the right front. I
have no evidence on how historical ones fastened; I did it that way because it
required fewer fastenings than fastening it up the front. The next one I make
will fasten up the front; that will require one more buckle, but make it easier
to get it over my head. The figure does not show the join between the back and
front part of the shoulder straps (also made of lamellae), since with the
shoulder straps assembled the piece no longer lies flat. When the klibanion is
completely finished, points a,b on the back shoulder piece lace
to points A, B on the front ones and lamellae c-ftouch
lamellae C-F. The front of the klibanion has an extra row of partial
lamellae at the bottom, cut to fit the curve of the body-this is a feature you
can see on the period pictures.

I have not shown how the armor fastens together. The simplest way is to
take a foot or so of leather thong, tie a knot in one end, run it into one of
the empty edge holes of lamella C, through the matching hole in lamella c, back
out through the other hole in c and finally back to front through the matching
hole in C, then tie a knot in the other end. If you pull it tight and tie it
the thong holds the two lamellae together as if they were laced. Repeat for D,
E, and F. Untying the thongs (but not pulling them out of the lamellae they are
laced through) lets you separate the two edges (c-f and C-F) by enough to put
the garment on. For a more convenient fastening, use buckles. The straps that
the buckles are on lace to the lamellae at one side of the gap, the straps that
go into the buckles lace to the lamellae at the other side. You may want to add
enough extra lamellae so that the two sides can overlap a little.

Figure 7

My current klibanion has a yoke of unhardened leather that fits over my
shoulders, with a hole for my head and a slit in front. The lamellae on the
shoulder lace down to the yoke. My shoulders and upper arms are protected by
pteruges ("feathers"-long rectangular pieces) of unhardened leather. The
yoke and pteruges are also shown on Figure 7.

Alternatively, one could make a lamellar flap to protect the shoulder, a
feature of both Japanese and Persian lamellar armor. A larger flap, possibly 3
rows of 11 lamellae each, could be hung from the back of the waist to protect
the buttocks. Another alternative would be more pteruges, hanging down from the
bottom edge of the klibanion to protect the upper thighs-I believe that is the
way the real Byzantine klibanions were often constructed. Yet another
possibility, and one I may try for my next project, is a longer coat of
lamellar, coming down to mid thigh and split front and back to permit better
leg movement.

After the klibanion is assembled, there is one final step. Put it back in the
oven at about 200deg. . Then put on your gambeson-or whatever else you plan to
wear under the armor. When the armor gets limp, which should only take five
minutes or so, take it out and put it on, being careful not to burn yourself.
Wrap several strips of cloth around your body over the armor, forcing the
lamellae flat against you; make sure there is at least one strip over each row
of lamellae. Let the armor cool and harden, then take it off. You now have a
klibanion custom fitted to your body. If the whole piece won't fit in your
oven, do this step a little earlier, when you have almost but not quite
finished lacing the lamellae together, so that the armor is still in two or
three separate pieces.

Once you have shaped the armor to your body, you do not want to reshape it to
something else. I have been told that a closed car in the sun can get hot
enough to soften waxed leather; although I have never had it happen, it is
probably worth taking care not to leave your courbouilli anywhere very hot. Of
course, if you forget, you can always put it back in the oven and reshape it. I
have also been told that courbouilli armor can soften somewhat if you fight in
it in very hot weather. My current view on the subject is that if it is too hot
out for my armor it is also too hot for me.

What will it take to make your klibanion? The one illustrated contains about
180 lamellae with a total area of about nine square feet, so you will need
about four and a half pounds of eight ounce leather-more if you use something
thicker. You will also need about two pounds of beeswax and ninety feet of
lacing.

If you can get suitable scrap leather for $3 a pound, your total cost for
leather, wax, and lacing should come to under $25, otherwise to under
$50-somewhat more if you choose to use something heavier than eight ounce
leather. Once you have figured out what you are doing, it should take about a
minute per lamella to cut them out, about another minute to harden and drill
them, and less than a minute per lamella to lace them, so you should be able to
make your second klibanion in about eight to ten hours of work-the first will
take longer. The lacing, incidentally, provides those of us who do not knit
something to do with our hands while conversing with friends or watching small
children.

The finished piece protects my torso from the waist up and weighs about six
pounds. I am 5'3" tall with a 36" waist; if you are substantially bigger or
smaller, scale the figures accordingly. Nine square feet of lamellae comes to
about four and a half square feet of armor, so I am covered, on average, by two
layers of 8 ounce hardened leather. I believe that that, over a reasonable
gambeson, should satisfy the armor requirements of any kingdom, but check with
your local marshall to make sure.

Whether or not it is legal, is it adequate protection? That depends on what
sort of fighting you do. For the average sword and shield fighter doing mostly
single combat, I think the answer is yes. The klibanion is light and
easy to move in, and it protects you reasonably well against the occasional
shot that gets through to your body-although you will want to add additional
protection for your torso below your waist and for your shoulders.

On the other hand, if you often take hard body blows-for instance, if you fight
bastard sword or two sword, or get involved in a lot of very messy melees-you
probably want substantially more protection for your body. One way to get it
would be to use thicker leather, perhaps 12 or 13 ounce or more, at least for
the most important parts of the armor, which probably means the sides. Another
is to use steel lamellae for some parts of the armor. That takes more time and
more tools, but it gives you armor combining most of the protection of steel
with most of the lightness of leather. I have tried both of these. My current
klibanion has steel lamellae alternating with hardened leather on one side and
thick hardened leather lamellae on the other-both seem to work fine. Another
alternative that I have not tried is to move the holes in the lamellae farther
in from the edge, in order to increase the amount of overlap.

This is a very simple klibanion. The ones shown in Byzantine pictures provided
more coverage of the upper body and shoulders, and often had additional pieces
of leather (pteruges) hanging down from the waist to protect the tops of the
legs.

Size and shape of surviving lamellae vary over a wide range; you may want to
experiment. My first klibanion used rectangular lamellae 3"x5". It was less
work to make than the one I have shown and provided about the same protection,
although slightly less flexibility. None of the pictures I have seen show
lamellae that big, which is the main reason I used smaller ones for my second
try. One of my squires has made a klibanion using lamellae similar to mine, but
about an inch wider. It was less work to make, since it required fewer
lamellae, and it probably provides slightly better protection; my next one will
use a similar pattern.

You should also feel free to use your own inspiration, guided, where practical,
by pictures of period lamellar armor, in varying the design. One of the nice
things about lamellar is that when you decide you need a little less under the
arm and a little more over the shoulder, all you have to do is move a few
lamellae. Try doing that with a steel breastplate.

A Gauntlet

Figure 8 shows a hardened leather gauntlet, both the cut out pieces and the
whole thing shaped and assembled. It is made of four pieces of hardened leather
(I recommend at least 14 oz) plus a hinge of unhardened leather (7 oz). The
hinge U is laced to the finger piece S along ff (which laces to
FF), to the hand piece R along gg (which laces to GG) and to the knuckle
piece T along ee (which laces to EE). The base of the thumb piece
overlaps the hand piece R, and is fastened by a piece of leather thong,
going through one hole at the base of Q and two holes in R. The
edges cc and dd, which touch when the gauntlet is assembled, are bevelled at
the bottom (the inside of the gauntlet), to help the gauntlet bend better.

The hard part, of course, is shaping the wet leather. The simplest way is to
use a steel mitten gauntlet of about the right shape as your form. If that is
not available, look for common household objects with the right shapes. The
finger piece S, for example, must curve down (to protect the sides and
tips of the fingers) everywhere except along cc, where it touches the hand
piece R. You can get this shape by molding it into the bottom of a shallow
bowl, with cc running roughly through the center of the bottom-that way the
other three sides curve up, but cc does not. When you think you have it about
right, take it out and do the final shaping by hand.

Figure 8

The hand piece R should end up with a sort of hourglass shape, with the
cuff flaring out from the wrist. To get this put the narrow end of a fairly
large funnel into the mouth of a jar, and tie them together. Then tie the wet
leather over the resulting hourglass shaped form.

Complete instructions for something as complicated as a gauntlet would require
a much longer discussion, a much better artist, and much more precise drawings.
This should, however, give you enough information to get started on your own
process of trial and error. If you do it right, you should end up with a
gauntlet that entirely bridges the hand and thumb, so that the force of a blow
to the hand is transmitted to your sword, not your hand.

Other Possibilities

There are lots of other things you can make out of hardened leather. My upper
legs, for instance, are protected by armored underpants-loose drawstring pants
with pockets holding long pieces of hardened leather. My gorget is hardened
leather, and one of our new people has been making himself hardened leather
copies of a simple steel elbow cop, using two thicknesses of eight ounce
leather. Another member of our group made a hardened leather basket hilt;
Figure 9 shows his design. I would recommend using at least 14 oz leather. One
could easily enough make a Visby coat of plates or a backplate and breastplate
combination, although I have not yet done either. And, of course, there is
always the hardened leather hockey cup-for which I recommend very thick
leather.

Rawhide

So far I have been discussing courbouilli -hardened leather. Another material
worth trying is rawhide. Unfortunately, it is more difficult to get-the maximum
thickness sold by the only commercial sources I have located so far is about 4
or 5 ounces, too light for armor.

Figure 9

One solution is to make your own; I have not tried that, although I know
someone who has. Fortunately, one of the members of our group knows someone who
makes drum heads, and was able to get a lot of scrap rawhide from him for me to
experiment with. My conclusions so far are fairly tentative, since I have made
a few things but not yet fought with them.

The rawhide I have been working with is about 1/8" thick when dry; I believe
this is the full thickness of the hide, so unless you have a source for rawhide
from a rhinoceros, it is probably about as thick as you can get. It is both
very hard and very tough--substantially stronger than 8 ounce hardened leather.
It can be cut with a saw, or soaked for a few hours to soften it and then cut
with a knife. While wet it can be stretched--the best way seems to be to punch
holes in the edges of the piece, and then use laces to pull it tightly over the
form. I made a dhal, a small buckler, by stretching the rawhide over a bowl.

One advantage--or perhaps disadvantage--of rawhide is that it can be dyed. My
Irish squire has been planning a patchwork klibanion, which should be
interesting. One problem with rawhide is that when it gets wet it gets soft. I
have visions of putting a klibanion into an armor bag along with a very sweaty
gambeson, and a week later pulling out a large rawhide pretzel. My solution to
this problem is to wax the rawhide, just as I would wax leather. Waxed rawhide
is no harder than unwaxed rawhide--but it seems to be waterproof.

Tools and Materials

The only expensive tool you will need for making hardened leather armor is one
you already have-an oven. A utility knife costs about $3 and does an adequate
job of cutting leather. For cutting lamellae, a large metal ruler is useful,
and even more useful if it is a right angle ruler. You will want a piece of
scrap plywood or linoleum to cut the leather on--utility knives mark up cutting
boards pretty badly. Aside from strips of rags, an empty wine bottle to use as
a form for your bazuband, a 2" diameter lid from a baby food jar to put on the
lamella and cut along in order to cut the rounded end, and a few similar odds
and ends, that is it.

To find local sources for leather, look in the Business to Business Yellow
Pages under leather, tanners, and shoe making supplies. The Leather Factory is
a chain with stores in many states; I have found their prices somewhat better
than Tandy's. Currently, a 20-22 sq. ft. hide of commercial grade saddle
skirting, 13-15 ounce thickness, is about $80 (plus postage) on sale, $110
otherwise. Beeswax is sometimes available from health food stores, or from
places that sell leather. It can be purchased by mail from Glorybee Bee Supply
store (1-800-GLORYBE). Their price, as of November 1991, was $1.95/pound plus
postage in quantities of ten pounds or more, and $2.95 a pound plus postage for
smaller quantities.

A Historical Note

In describing hardened leather armor at the beginning of this article, I said
that, in addition to all of its other virtues, it is also period. I should
qualify that by saying that although hardened leather was used as armor in
period, I do not know the details of how it was hardened. I should also add
that although the bazuband is a period piece of armor--it appears in pictures
from the eighth century and is common in late period Persian art (see Robinson
and Elgood)--the surviving ones that I know of are made of metal. They could
have been made of hardened leather and I think it likely that some were, but I
cannot prove it.